Recommended Posts

Important note that I failed to mention : while Time Bank is scheduled (and necessary IMO) for launch, the Tome functionality will be added some time later (my guess is at least a few months later, but we will see where it falls out. There is a lot of schedule changing that will happen between now and then).

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Blair gave an example at the end of the Stream explicitly stating a VIP could opt to put both of his profession trainings inside the Combat category, in two different combat trees. That's a vertical advantage. Those stats will all add up on the same avatar. Armor + weapons, ranger having 1h + ranged at the same time, etc.

Good catch and valid criticism of current table design. We'll need to address this.

W/HoA were held up as like these mystical forces of highly skilled players with legendary theorycrafters chained to a desk in some deep dungeon holding all the arcane secrets we could use to win if only we knew them.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Glad the double dipping in combat for VIP was acknowledged. Can you comment on if tomes will allow you to have more total training on a single account than is possible with just VIP. Will tomes allow you to surpass "catching up"?

Tomes aren't valuable as a catch up mechanic unless new players know about them and/or have the resources to purchase them.

There is nothing that is stopping ACE from including basic tomes for specific early branches as either part of new account packages, or as separate items in the cash shop.

VIP now effectively represents 30 72 hour tomes, three training lines by 30 days each, So selling specific basic skill tomes or tome packages for a few bucks in the shop to new players gives a solid catch up mechanic that ACE can pull a few extra bucks in with. Sort of like how WOW has level 100 instant.

Once there is a plethora of players that have fleshed out the basic skills, there is no reason to force all new players to start from zero.

Actually, there is no reason for ANY of us to start with zero. ACE could easily just start new accounts with some basic time bank in the early skills.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Good catch and valid criticism of current table design. We'll need to address this.

Todd

Yeah...this is really my only issue with the system. While its true for the first X number of days, that the VIP will be force to train both Combat Basics and Exploration (or Crafting) basics, once he/she is beyond that point..and has both Armor and Weapon basics as available to them, they can then double the amount of combat training than is available to the Non-VIP account. This equates to REAL PVP power and runs contrary to the initial design goals. As others have pointed out, simply preventing any two combat or any two harvesting or any two crafting skills from being trained at the same time will greatly fix this inequality. [The Standard account can be as good at combat or as good at harvesting...but by virtue of the VIP advantage, will never be able to be as good at both at the same time...an inequity I'm ok with...so long as the VIP cannot double dip in any single major division (Combat/Harvest/Craft).]

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

If and when we want to add a respec mechanic, it would be very simple to tie into this system: allow people to peel pips off of trained Skills, in reverse order, to get some % of those minutes back into the Time Bank for that tree.

This wouldn't allow you to spend those minutes in other trees, obviously, but it would allow you to change course within a single tree.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Good catch and valid criticism of current table design. We'll need to address this.

Todd

I think how Blair explained it is the best way to keep it. If you force VIP to train in 2 different paths then you eliminate the possibility of specialist characters and instead force everyone to be hybrids. It is possible to address the non-vip vs vip power curve with the newly announced skill tome mechanic.

First let me say that I think total account skill training should not be able to exceed total training available to a self trained VIP account since time of launch.

With the assumption above being true, non-vip players (day 1 players) could purchase skill tomes to allow training of both weapons and armor in the combat tree to even out any disparity. The ability to be a hybrid or a specialist will come down to player choice and provide a wide range of options without making players their own island. Let's be honest here, VIP should be a carrot and an enticing one at that, we need to fund continual development of the game. As long as the skill tome is an option for parity between VIP and non-vip as well as a mechanic for catching up players who start later then you can't call it P2W. If players can simply buy more skill points with no restriction on total account training then it most assuredly is P2W.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The revealed system has done away with Class Specific Training and instead has given us a bi-class system where if I train Barbarian Skills it will benefit my crow when it occupies both the Champion and Myrmidon and if I train Divinity Skills, it will benefit my crow when it occupies both the Cleric and Druid. While I see the benefits to this system, in terms of deferring class specific training until a later date when I truly know what I want to play, I think there a lot of folks who would like the more class specific training. Perhaps having these bi-class periods be of a relatively short duration (30-45 days to get through) and then add back in specific class trees for each class...these concerns would be alleviated and both objectives would be achieved. Has there been any discussion along those lines? Adding back in the class specific training at a later date?

The revealed system has done away with Class Specific Training and instead has given us a bi-class system where if I train Barbarian Skills it will benefit my crow when it occupies both the Champion and Myrmidon and if I train Divinity Skills, it will benefit my crow when it occupies both the Cleric and Druid. While I see the benefits to this system, in terms of deferring class specific training until a later date when I truly know what I want to play, I think there a lot of folks who would like the more class specific training. Perhaps having these bi-class periods be of a relatively short duration (30-45 days to get through) and then add back in specific class trees for each class...these concerns would be alleviated and both objectives would be achieved. Has there been any discussion along those lines? Adding back in the class specific training at a later date?

The did mention the more class specific stuff as "Future Todd and Blair" (well not Blair, he left himself out) problems in the stream seeing as getting there is at least a year away in training time.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The revealed system has done away with Class Specific Training and instead has given us a bi-class system where if I train Barbarian Skills it will benefit my crow when it occupies both the Champion and Myrmidon and if I train Divinity Skills, it will benefit my crow when it occupies both the Cleric and Druid. While I see the benefits to this system, in terms of deferring class specific training until a later date when I truly know what I want to play, I think there a lot of folks who would like the more class specific training. Perhaps having these bi-class periods be of a relatively short duration (30-45 days to get through) and then add back in specific class trees for each class...these concerns would be alleviated and both objectives would be achieved. Has there been any discussion along those lines? Adding back in the class specific training at a later date?

Maybe in the end of the class trees have them branch out further into a promotion class of a sort, so when you've trained druid + cleric, you can then choose to specify further into the classes seperatly?

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Overall the VIP advantage feels good. If the intent is to have people spend alot of time in game (duh) then systems need to support people doing different things. Being able to fight and craft, or collect and craft, is a nice balance without making every player their own self-sufficient island.

I have always wanted to have a singular account, instead of having to juggle my main plus my CE bonus, to be able to participate in CW efforts which will be a balance between conflict and economy.

I'm not on-board with Tomes yet. The reaction in the twitch chat matched mine exactly - alt accounts feeding a main. The diminishing returns just makes an incentive for everyone to alt-tome up to that diminishing point, and doesn't remove the advantage to the behavior.

Share on other sites

Overall the VIP advantage feels good. If the intent is to have people spend alot of time in game (duh) then systems need to support people doing different things. Being able to fight and craft, or collect and craft, is a nice balance without making every player their own self-sufficient island.

I have always wanted to have a singular account, instead of having to juggle my main plus my CE bonus, to be able to participate in CW efforts which will be a balance between conflict and economy.

I'm not on-board with Tomes yet. The reaction in the twitch chat matched mine exactly - alt accounts feeding a main. The diminishing returns just makes an incentive for everyone to alt-tome up to that diminishing point, and doesn't remove the advantage to the behavior.

But it's for each tree.

So if you alt-tome your first tree, it will forever be too far behind to push the main higher.

If you wait the year or more it takes to get into the final trees in the line, diminishing returns means you're still two years out from being able to feed your main for free because it still has to be fed training from all the requirements, or you have to spend the mains time actually training.

In the meantime other players just doing their thing will be at or past that point anyway.

Is it possible, sure, in a couple of years. Is it practical or a real advantage, nope.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

So if you alt-tome your first tree, it will forever be too far behind to push the main higher.

If you wait the year or more it takes to get into the final trees in the line, diminishing returns means you're still two years out from being able to feed your main for free.

This is a logistical problem not a technical problem and is only limited by the number of accounts a player is willing to fund.

You could snowball the accounts. N accounts feed Main. Once the main gets to tier 2 skills then you boost one of the alt accounts to tier 2 (N-1). Theoretically you could have X number of main/priority accounts which all get boosted at the same time which are then used to boost the "master" account. The only limitation is the number of accounts. For a single player this would be cost prohibitive for most, however it could easily be managed by a guild for a "boosted" crafter etc.

Use tab 2 on link to modify #of booster accounts (1-50) and number of days to max train skill tree (1-365)

Share on other sites

This is a logistical problem not a technical problem and is only limited by the number of accounts a player is willing to fund.

You could snowball the accounts. N accounts feed Main. Once the main gets to tier 2 skills then you boost one of the alt accounts to tier 2 (N-1). Theoretically you could have X number of main/priority accounts which all get boosted at the same time which are then used to boost the "master" account. The only limitation is the number of accounts. For a single player this would be cost prohibitive for most, however it could easily be managed by a guild for a "boosted" crafter etc.

Prove it with math. I think your snowball is fantasy. There is one guy who has over 30 accounts, @Tark, and I am just waiting with baited breath to hear what he plans on doing with this system.

My guess, he won't trade any time to pump a main, and will still just run ALT's who will have 1-1 training time without diminishing returns.

Besides, so what?

I mean after a year or so we are all supposed to have access to, or arranged access through our friends through interdependent relationships, to every skill anyway. It's not like you can harvest stone/iron/wood at the same time, nor like you can craft and harvest at the same time. Just crafting weapons, or armor, or going to the field and gathering ore, is going to be a human's full time in game profession anyway.

In all these complaints about how this will allow one account to be boosted, which has not been demonstrated or proven, nobody has explained what makes this worse than what came before, only that it could possibly lead to some theoretical skill boost exploitation.

In my opinion, the old system was far worse for incentive to hold alts and exploit the skill system. Far worse.